First review for Iberocruise

[salgospain]

IBEROCRUISE EASTERN MED. 27th Oct – 10th Nov. 2013

 

We are trying here to be objective and offer both praise and criticism, as we see things through our own eyes. Of course, listening to other passengers (and we can converse at a good level with the Spanish customers) we cannot help but feel that we are absolutely not alone in the way we view the cruise as a whole.

 

Pros

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• Price reasonable for 14 days, all inclusive and pick-up near home

• Ship very clean in public areas and staff work very hard round the clock to maintain this standard. Most of the hotel staff are excellent and courteous - our room boy, Manuel and table waters couldn’t do more to please.

• The itinerary for the trip was excellent with 9 fabulous ports to visit over the 14 day cruise.

• Entertainment was usually very good

• Iberocruceros had done a lot to support their English-speaking clients with daily bulletins and Tannoy information broadcast throughout the ship. Slightly more British Expats than Spanish clients on board.

 

 

Cons.

• “Grand Celebration” is rather old and presents a few problems, especially to older people and those with mobility difficulties simply navigating round. We felt that 2 weeks was too long onboard this ship. All the public areas are in the upper decks. There are 8 lifts, some of which were quite often not working - one when it was “repaired” would only accept about 5 people instead of the full capacity of 10. This caused a lot of problems at high use periods. Inherent in the design, it was necessary to go up and down a flight of stairs from the lift to access both dining rooms - very hard for people with mobility issues.

• Our biggest concern was about the catering standard on board- we are cruisers with some experience, having travelled on half a dozen cruises with Iberocruceros being our fourth company. The dining arrangements at all times of the day are hopelessly inadequate, with very little style and lacking consistency and quality. The food is seldom more than lukewarm (hot plates and plate warmers when the food exits the kitchen would be a big help!) Presentation should be paramount and part of the dining experience - sorry, but so very little effort has gone in here, and where it has, it is very inconsistent - starter courses seem to fare better than mains in this respect. I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but the quality comes across as Canteen food rather than International cuisine. The choice of food in the dinner menu also seems very patchy, especially if you are not a great meat eater - while some table guests are eating meat, those others are eating, perhaps a slab of lasagne or moussaka with very little sauce and with no embellishment, in the centre of a cold plate!

• So much of the food was created “using frozen components”, a quote from the printed dinner menu every day, where the majority of the dishes had a * to indicate this was the case.

 

• Both set dining rooms serve the same food, from the same kitchen, with only the rather tired-out buffet available as an alternative for lunch but not for dinner. While the staff were always friendly and trying hard to please, there seemed to be insufficient supervision and training from the better qualified and presumably higher paid staff. Our waiter, Luis and his assistant (table 121) were run off their feet with 27 customers for dinner while tables nearby with half as many diners also had 2 waiters who were often standing around with nothing to do. Surely this demonstrates a lack of management supervision and training?

• There is no possibility for exercise, fast walking right round on one deck level. First time for us on any cruise boat that this has not been possible. Where it was possible to walk in short bursts it coincided with all the smokers corners!

 

 

In conclusion. Would we cruise again with Ibercruceros? Probably not, and certainly not such a long cruise, as the general level of comfort and dining experience was not high enough compared to other companies we have used. That being said we did enjoy much of our two weeks, especially the itinerary, and for the price we paid, (considering that we didn’t have the expense of flying back to the UK for the departure) we had reasonable value for money.

Edited March 17, 2014 by salgospain